Digital Signage – Preventing Dead Screens

A digital signage screen that isn’t working is an all too common sight these days. Damaged, badly maintained or software issues often lead to screen failure but the effects of which have a strong bearing on, not just the screen owners and advertisers who are losing revenue and wasting their investment, but as Raji Kalra on Sixteen-nine points out, “black or damaged DOOH networks hurt the industry as a whole when their product is down or showing problems. It causes another kind of ripple effect none of us want.”

And this is certainly true, for the digital signage industry, our best promotion for what we do are the screens themselves and for every damaged, blank or dead screen and potential user can be put off – not wanting to invest all that money on a system that is flawed.

Obviously, as David points out, accidents and incidents happen and getting screens repaired and up and running is important to prevent the industry from being shown in a bad light – but surely preventing screens from going down in the first place is a better solution.

LCD enclosure

Outdoor Digital Signage

Ironically, despite the conditions that outdoor screens have to cope with, the problem of dead screens is less prevalent in outdoor areas. This may because outdoor digital signage screens are more obvious and a dead screen gets repaired quickly; however, there is another possibility – because of the environment they have to operate in, outdoor display screens are far better protected and less liable to fail.

Many indoor screens are simple devices. Digital posters or standard LCD displays hooked up to a media player, and this may seem fine, in the warm confines of a shopping mall or retail unit. But are these locations really the types of environment these types of screens are designed for?

In outdoor digital signage because of the demands of weather, temperature and the vulnerability to vandalism, outdoor screens are well-protected by weatherproof LCD enclosures – and while many of the protective facets of such enclosures may not be required in an indoor location – such as waterproofing, they do hold other advantages.

Inside an LCD enclosure the exact operating conditions for a display screen is created. The temperature, dust free environment not only protects the screen from harmful exterior elements but also keeps the screen operating in optimum conditions.

If more and more indoor screens were protected in such environmental enclosures many of the dead screens so commonly found may not have been damaged in the first place.